Established in 2020, the Carnegie China Fellowship is a premier, policy-focused fellowship designed to support rising American scholars focused on understanding China’s rise and its implications for the world and the United States.
Currently on its fifth cohort, the program bridges the gap between the worlds of academia and policy, with its fellows and alumni playing vital roles in informing the ongoing policy debates, both in Washington and around the globe.
Current Fellows
Chan’s project focuses on great power competition in Southeast Asia, exploring how and why China’s relations with Southeast Asian states varies.
Cooper’s project focuses on how, over the last quarter century, China’s military has
transformed, alongside the regional military balance. Previously, China had invested in classic anti-access weapons but today Beijing is following the traditional path of a rising great power — developing power projection forces such as aircraft carriers. This project tracks this shift quantitatively and contrasts it to changes in the U.S. military since the beginning of the 21st century.
Ding’s project asks, what is China’s current level of civil-military integration? This project develops a novel framework to measure integration across four main channels through which the commercial and defense sectors can foster synergistic relationships.
Elfstrom’s research explores the history of how the labor movement in the United States has long struggled with how to approach China. This project draws on the experiences of participants in worker exchanges in the 2000s and 2010s to explore possible paths forward.
Farid’s project examines how traditional advocacy approaches designed for a Western-led global governance architecture are becoming less effective in a changing global order. By analyzing the strategies of local community groups and international NGOs in recipient countries of China’s overseas aid and investment, this study examines how environmental governance and policy change are evolving amid growing authoritarianism, multipolarity and challenges to established international institutions.
Freedman’s project to assess the current state of social policy in China and explore the ideological underpinnings of the party’s current approach to social spending. It will trace the evolution of the concept of “welfarism” over time in China and unpack how party leaders have understood the relationship of the welfare state to economic growth. A deeper analysis of the ideas shaping policymaking can shed light on the state of contemporary social policy and the prospects for economic rebalancing in China.
Grose’s project examines how ongoing Chinese state violence continues to impact Uyghur communities and erode cultural life in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, despite U.S. sanctions imposed in response to human rights abuses. It argues for a reassessment of current U.S. policy, advocating for greater diplomatic engagement and increased support for Uyghur diaspora communities.
Hines’ work analyzes how Chinese analysts and policymakers understand the role of space in deterrence and for escalation. How do they understand the risks of escalation and of debris generation? To answer these questions, this project draws on a wide array of Chinese sources to examine how key actors in China’s space community view the role of space in Chinese military strategy.
In 2019, China’s President Xi Jinping released a plan for the Greater Bay Area, a project of economic development and integration that further incorporates Hong Kong and Macau with the major cities of Guangdong Province. Ho’s project traces the origins of the Greater Bay Area in the Pearl River Delta, examining how human migration, infrastructure, and other exchanges have both connected and divided South China across the long twentieth century.
Koesel’s research analyzes political education in contemporary China. It investigates what political knowledge is being transmitted to students, how young people are socialized to be patriotic citizens, and how political education portrays China’s rise and its strategic competitors, including the United States and liberal democracy. This study will inform scholarship and policymakers about micro-foundations of political legitimacy in China and has implications for understanding the evolving dynamics of U.S.-China relations.
Leng’s project explores Chinese investments in South America. Focusing on the economic and political activities of Chinese companies in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, the project examines their influence on regulatory environments in host countries.
Liu’s project investigates China’s evolving strategies to promote a renminbi-based global financial system and its implications for U.S.-China competition and global financial system. This research is vital for understanding emerging challenges for continued U.S. leadership and global financial stability. It aims to clarify the conceptual and policy differences among renminbi internationalization, de-dollarization and financial sanction mitigation.
Moore’s project addresses the question of whether China will assume a leading role in global climate governance, particularly as the United States withdraws from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This report addresses that question by defining international climate leadership along two dimensions—diplomatic and financial—and measuring each using new data from the China Climate Diplomacy (CCD) database.
Murphy’s research analyzes China’s views of, interests in, and approach to the Middle East since 2017. It asks, how does China view this region in the context of the concept of Great Changes Unseen in a Century? What is the role of the Middle East in Beijing’s global initiatives (e.g., Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative, Global Governance Initiative and Community of Shared Future for Humankind)?
Amid increasing deregulation in the US, China is taking a more active role in regulating overseas investment. Ratigan’s project examines how these regulations, while aiming to protect China's economic and political interests overseas, shape how Chinese firms interact with local stakeholders and host governments in their approaches to environmental, social, and governance
issues.
The Chinese state characterizes many incidents of discontent or violence in Xinjiang as acts of “Islamic extremism,” but the evidence for this at the grassroots is mixed. Schluessel’s project traces changes in and depictions of local modes of organization and mobilization to test whether present conflicts follow patterns from the past or represent something new.